MAIL CALL: KERRY-EDWARDS: 'JUST WHAT THE COUNTRY

The Democratic Dream Team

Those of our readers who are John Kerry supporters were thrilled by the choice of John Edwards as his running mate, the subject of our July 19 cover. "Senator Edwards brings a fresh, dynamic perspective to a tired and worn political landscape," one said. Enthused another, "A John-John Democratic ticket combines one senator's experience and another's dynamism, which is just what the country needs." One compared the duo with the current White House occupants, commenting that it was "refreshing to see the relaxed, confident smiles of Kerry-Edwards on your cover after three and a half years of the smirking, arrogant posturing of Bush-Cheney." Opponents, of course, thought otherwise. One, noting the candidates' experience as lawyers, said, "These guys are outstanding at telling juries what they want to hear." Another scoffed, " 'The Sunshine Boys'? How about calling them who they really are: 'Billionaire and Millionaire'?"

I must confess I had a sleepless night on the eve of John Kerry's veep announcement, and I screamed with glee when the news came from my television ("The Sunshine Boys?" July 19). I see in John Edwards another John F. Kennedy. I see the future of America--the America we once were: a nation that represented liberty and opportunity for all and was respected globally. John Kerry, as president, will restore all this and more. I believe in him, heart and soul. I am deeply distressed with George W. Bush's leadership. He inflated intelligence to justify war; he has weakened the economy and has turned the previous administration's surplus into a huge deficit. On Election Day I will proudly vote for Kerry and Edwards. They have my complete support.
Michelle Hollingsworth
Parkland, Fla.

With the selection of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his running mate, John Kerry has chosen someone who brings to the ticket qualities he does not possess. Edwards is a Southerner; a charming, charismatic, effusive, empathetic man of personality and animation; a candidate with boyish good looks; one who can disagree without being disagreeable and hateful; a self-made man born into a family of modest means. But along with his positive attributes, Edwards brings a glaring liability: he is a fabulously wealthy trial lawyer, one who is against tort reform, and thereby squarely for the continuing calamity of our increasingly unaffordable colossus, the health-care system, which--through the awarding of absurd punitive damages--enriches attorneys and plain-tiffs beyond all reason. It will be fascinating to observe how Kerry will continue to pledge to work for affordable health care for all Americans when his running mate has worked so hard to deny it to us.
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper St. Clair, Pa.

The Kerry-Edwards ticket is a breath of fresh air for us war-weary Americans. From their down-home family group picture to their positive campaign rhetoric, they give us a vision of the American Dream that's been missing for too long. Kerry and Edwards are giving us back our optimism and offering America a real hope for the future.
Lois Hendricks
Arcadia, Fla.

For the past two years at least, John Kerry and others have been bashing President Bush about his purportedly avoiding military service; about being wrong, deceitful, clueless and warmongering, and about lying to everyone in America. On and on the negativism has poured forth. Now I read in NEWSWEEK and hear from other news sources how the Democrats will be taking the high road and conducting a positive convention and campaign. Can you say "flip-flop"? I sure can.
George Minns
Stillwater, Minn.